A nice welcome to the world of sea eagles!

Apologies for the lack of action on the blog page for the past month or so. I have recently taken over from Claire as East Scotland Sea Eagle Officer, and have been welcomed with a baptism of fire! I’ve had a lot to learn and to catch up on, as well as keeping track of this year’s release cohort which are now in the skies over Fife and Perthshire. 16 birds were released and I was fortunate to be involved with this just before starting my new post. Claire has been a great help to me while I get settled and find my feet!

We also have some more great news on the funding front! A contribution of £31,000 over the next two years has been secured from Rural Tayside and Fife LEADER to help ensure the continuation of the East Scotland sea Eagle project.

The money will allow us to focus on community engagement and maximising local economic benefit in the rural Tayside and Fife regions by providing more volunteer opportunities and increasing the education aspect of the project. We will also be able to start to prepare viewing facilities for possible future nesting attempts by the eagles, which in itself will increase the potential for nature tourism in the region. This will provide an invaluable educational tool and benefit the local economy.

We are also able to use this funding to continue with the 6^th year of releases in the area to bring the total number of released eagles in east Scotland as close as possible to 100 birds. This will significantly increase the survival chances of the reintroduced population into the future. Leaders funding will support the acquisition of the birds from Norway and the complicated logistics involved!

Thanks to Ken Jack for this wonderful photo of 11RedT on his big release day!